For those prospective space tourists among you, why stick around the Earth?

Constellation Services International (CSI) envisions Russian Soyuz spacecraft used for fly-me-to-the-Moon passenger service. The entrepreneurial firm unveiled their plan for the first time during a recent Return to the Moon conference, sponsored by the Space Frontier Foundation.

CSI "is in early discussions with potential partners to find out if there is interest in a commercial lunar flight in the 2008 time frame," said Charles Miller, President and CEO of the firm in Alexandria, Virginia.

The idea is to sell one of three Soyuz seats to a space tourist for an initial week-long stay at the International Space Station (ISS). The space sightseer and fellow crew members would then add to their travelogue by sojourning onward for a week-long lunar stint.

The Soyuz would require a kick-stage for the cis-lunar run. On the return leg, the craft would double-dip into the Earth's atmosphere, making use of a thicker-than-normal Soyuz thermal protection system en route to a parachute touchdown.

Miller noted that the former Soviet Union flew modified Soyuz craft - in the Zond series -- around the Moon and returned them to Earth over three decades ago. "It is obvious they can do it again. The Soyuz is more advanced and robust now than it was in 1968-1970," he told SPACE.com.

"We might be able to do this without a dime of NASA money," Miller said.

Hum. 2008. I'll start saving up now!

_________________"Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys."
P.J. O'Rourke

There is a chance, that the price for a week space travel round the moon by Soyuz one day will be at levels less than the currently expected price of suborbital flights by SS1.

The reason is very simple - as the number of passengers increases, the volume of the Soyuz will be increased. But the costs of this increase of volume will increase by a less rate. Explanation: For example an empty cube of 1 m3 requires material of 6 m2 and only this material is causing costs - another empty cube of 8 m3 requires material of 24 m2; if 1 m2 costs 1 Dollar the first 1 m3 are costing 6 Dollars but the 8 m3 in the second case are costing 3 Dollars each only. So the costs of the larger cube didn't increase as the volume increased - by 8 - but less - by 4.

Similarly the costs of launch and organization will be decreased per passenger.

Now there might be another vehicle than the Soyuz in future as Sigurd said recently in a seperate discussion. This future vehicle seems to be reusable. If the tourist travel around the moon will use this vehicle there will be additional reduces of costs per passenger.

Waht I said abou the material in my explanation is valid for the weight also and because of this the additional vlolume won't cause corresponding increases of the amount of propellent required but only less increases.

If there will be hundreds of tourists to the moon a spaceship ever staying in space might be used and the tourists might be brought there by small orbital spacecrafts. This way costs might be reduced too.

The costs of the travels all depend on the number of passengers and freight. I hope to see increased them by XPRIZE and XPRIZE Foundation

Y'know, that's what several of the (captured) German engineers originally suggested regarding the Apollo program (it might've been Wernher von Braun himself, but I'm not sure), that there should be a rendezvous in Earth orbit, thus reducing the wasted weight and material to the absolute minimum. Sounds like it'd work, if they managed to scrape up the funding.

I still say there should be a major casino/resort either in orbit or on the Moon. Good way to get funding, and the backers would definitely stand to gain quite a lot -- let's face it, there's no vice laws in space. The only trick is getting the launch cost down to a suitable level.

Sigurd posted the topix "Russia suggests that ESA take part in new spaceship project" to discus the clipper under another aspect.

Concerning private space travels a tourist trip to the moon by Soyuz or by the clipper the obstacle will be the governments.

The russians wouldn't refuse to take tourists to such a trip because it would help financing russian space activities but if ESA would enter the clipper project it will say "no" to these travels I think because it is governmental like NASA.

But it's not sure that ESA will enter because it has ordered six ATVs in Bremen/Germany. These are not reusable.

Private travel by Soyuz, Clipper, Shuttle - if the private space travel sector grows as time goes by there will be federations of private space travel firms and private spacecraft firms. The sector will pull business form NASA, ESA and Russia away to the privates and the federations will become powerful. Then the governmental agencies and the governments will change their policies and take tourists to their flights.

Everyone should remember that there were times of overseas travels at freight ships. The travels have not been offered but if someone wanted a tourist travel overseas he could asked for a passage by the freight ship and they took him. It wasn't luxury but cheap. There was the possibility to do work on the ship instead of paying too. That might be a practice possible at space missions too but it has to be organized.

I still say there should be a major casino/resort either in orbit or on the Moon. Good way to get funding, and the backers would definitely stand to gain quite a lot -- let's face it, there's no vice laws in space.

TORONTO, CANADA, AUGUST 5, 2004 - In another first for the online casino industry, gaming site GoldenPalace.com will boldly go where no casino has gone before with the GoldenPalace.com Space Program: Powered by The da Vinci Project.

This will be the Canadian entry in the Ansari X Prize $10,000,000 competition for the first team to privately finance, build, and launch a spaceship carrying three people to a 100 kilometer altitude (62.5 miles), return safely to Earth, and repeat the launch with the same ship within 2 weeks. The casino’s brand will also appear on the ship itself-the Wild Fire-during its historic flight to the very edge of Space and into the history books. The Ansari X Prize is intended to promote the Space tourism industry through competition among the most talented entrepreneurs and rocket experts in the world.

‘This is a momentous occasion that will really place GoldenPalace.com on the world stage,’ said GoldenPalace.com founder and CEO Richard Rowe. ‘This will go down in history as one of the key moments in humankind’s race to Space. Years from now, children will be learning about this event in school along with the moon landing.’

Just as the building of the city of Las Vegas turned the Nevada desert into a city of lights, GoldenPalace.com hopes to do the same in the final frontier just as they pioneered the online casino industry in 1997. Team leader and pilot Brian Feeney will be bringing a laptop along for the ride in order for his team to enjoy the GoldenPalace.com casino games on their trip to sub-orbital Space.

I think the circumlunar Soyuz flight would have had a crew of only two astronauts. That means that any prospective tourist will have to undergo extensive training to take care of the increased workload of maning the spacecraft.

_________________Thank you very much Mister Roboto
For helping escape when I needed most
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